'PLAGUE' Book Review

Plague
Michael Grant
512 pg., U.S. Hardcover
ARC Review
6/5 Stars


One Star for Character Development
One Star for Plot
One Star for Flow
One Star for Conflict and Resolution
One Star for Ending
*One Star for Anticipation*

CAUTION : SPOILERS AHEAD.

i. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
In the fourth book of the GONE series, the characters have been through a massive amount of development. Astrid Ellison has gone from the kind, sweet, genius girl who everyone wanted to know, to a vicious, protective matriarch figure who pulls a giant no-no in this book: killing Little Pete.
Little Pete is another character that I wanted to touch-up on. He goes through a new mental state we have never seen from him. The book takes us into his mind and we see the way that he looks at the world from inside of his mind. His importance to the FAYZ influences Astrid to shoot him, only we do get a chapter from his perspective at the very end that states that Little Pete had never felt more alive.
The characters of Mary, Orsay, and Nerezza are obviously not featured in this book since they died in the previous one, but we also do not see Mary's brother, John.
Taylor is brought to a much more important role, becoming a love interest to the drunken Sam who was denied by Astrid at the beginning of the story. Sam begins to feel guilty for his selfish act of groping to Taylor at the beginning of the story, and doesn't maintain romantic feelings for her.
Brittney and Drake switch places as the same entity. Brittney tries to persuade people to kill Drake and trust God, while Drake is carrying out the Gaiaphage's orders. Dekka, Sam, Taylor, and Jack, along with the new truth-teller, Toto, spend most of the book searching for food and water for the FAYZ. Dekka develops one of the plagues, a skin infection with viruses literally eating away at her skin, the other plague being when children throw up their life...
Lana is angry and angsty once again, but develops a relationship with Sanjit. Diana and Caine have the most interesting subplot of all, to me. Diana, with hair, has basically had her life torn apart. Penny has her legs bent completely out of shape, and she is in the worst physical condition possible from the waist-down. Diana has to constantly help her and also pay attention to Caine. She convinces Caine to tell her that he loves her, even though it doesn't come out that specific way, and the two make love. This affair continues throughout the book and Diana discovers that she can read people's power levels without touching them, and gains suspicion.
On the very last line of the story--excluding Little Pete's final chapter--Diana confesses that she is pregnant, and she hopes that a baby is all that it is.
ii. PLOT
The main plot of this book is that the FAYZ is having a shortage of food and water, and young children are coughing horribly and dying, giving Dahra Baidoo a lot of work to do. The two plagues, as discussed above, involve a skin infection caused by these giant bugs, and the other is when children cough up their lungs and blood, and they die.
The subplots include Astrid staying with Little Pete and confronting other members of the FAYZ, including Orc and the Human Crew. Another subplot is of Sam, Jack, Taylor, Dekka, and Toto finding food and water to bring back to the FAYZ. Another is of Albert taking control, the one I mentioned of Caine and Diana, and one involving Edilio losing his health.
iii. FLOW
The story flowed from paragraph to paragraph, and this is the only one of the GONE books that had a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter and the end of the book. The other books flowed well, but the ending of the books had much more closure than this one. We are left hanging at the end, finding out Diana is pregnant. There is also fantastic spacing between each subplot. You aren't secluded from the subplot for too long, but they don't continue back to back.
iv. CONFLICT & RESOLUTION
Each subplot has its own conflict and resolution, so I will break each one down.
SAM -
Conflict : No water or food for the FAYZ, horrible bugs infesting people
Resolution : Finds a lot of food and it rains in the FAYZ. They battle the worms.
ASTRID -
Conflict : Many different issues going on in the FAYZ, most caused by her brother, Pete.
Resolution : She kills Little Pete.
DIANA/CAINE -
Conflict : Out of power. Diana is neglected.
Resolution : Caine becomes King of the FAYZ, Diana and Caine make love, only to become pregnant.
ALBERT -
Conflict : He needs to maintain business and financial order within the FAYZ
Resolution : --
v. ENDING
Holy magoly this ending. I LOVE this ending, and it is possibly my favorite ending in history. I wasn't expecting for anybody to get pregnant in this book, maybe down the line in Fear or Light, but definitely not this one.
But at the end of the book, we find out that Diana is pregnant, and that what is inside of her may not be a simple child.
I don't know if the baby will be born in the next book, unless a lot of time elapses between this book and the next, then I can see the baby being born.
vi. ANTICIPATION
I was waiting for this book ever since I put Lies down. I avoided as many spoilers as I could, but let the floodgates open when we interviewed Michael. My anticipation built as the months grew closer.
I received this book as an ARC, not a finished copy, a week before the book came out, and I read it in less than a day.
I believe that this is the best book in the GONE series, and I am ecstatic to put out this review.
Thanks for reading!

--Riley